Patent GB-972810-A (GB)
Title: Railway car identifier
IPC: B61L25/04
Filed: 1963-03-08
Abstract: 972,810. Railway vehicle identification. RABINOW ENGINEERING CORPORATION Inc. March 8, 1963 [March 22, 1962], No. 9266/63. Heading B7N. An arrangement for identifying railway vehicles comprises an information bearing panel, Fig. 6A, carried by the wheel and axle assembly of the vehicle, e.g. mounted vertically on the lid of a journal box, and trackside apparatus, Fig. 3, including a pair of light sources 18, 20 and a reading machine 16 for interpreting the information reflected from the panel. Each panel may include, reading from right to left, a blank reflecting area 24a, a complete column of non- reflecting holes 32 and a number of information columns b-j. The panel may be scanned in passing by means of a scanning disc 100 with apertures 101-108 via which light is passed to a photo-cell 109. The cell output is amplified and applied to black and white quantizers 114, 116 which produce an output signal on line 118 when a hole is scanned and on line 120 when the rest of the panel is scanned. These signals are gated in units 122, 124 by the output of multivibrator 128 which also strobes the light sources 18, 20. When a panel enters the scanning field the white signals produced by the area 24a are gated at 138 with clock signals in synchronization with the disc rotation to provide " white " signals on line 142 to operate counter 144. The panel width and speed of the disc are such that counter 144 is stepped to its end during each complete scan, i.e. 101, 102 &c., and produces on line 146 a signal which resets the counter and counts one complete scan into counter 152. The area 24a is such that with the fastest train at least " n " complete " white " scans are recorded and the counter 152 then sets flip-flop 156 which produces a standing signal at one input to gate 160. The " black " signals produced by scanning the column of holes are applied with the clock pulses to gate 164 and the gate output signals are applied to counter 170 which has the same number of stages as there are holes in the column. The counter provides the second input to gate 160. The following white scan produces a third input to the gate which then produces an output signal to set flip-flop 188. The flip-flop output and the black information signal on line 167 produce an output from gate 192 which via " OR " gate 197 triggers a pulse generator which operates counter 196 at a frequency which is a function of the speed of the disc and the pitch of the holes. The counter is stepped six times to interrogate gates 200 in turn whereby the information signal on line 166 is fed to the six stages of shift register 208. The counter 196 is recycled via line 210 and gate 212 until the gate is inhibited by a " white " signal on line 150 which is generated when the space between the columns is detected. The white signal is applied with a delayed recycling signal to gate 220 which suplies a shift signal to move the information stored in register 208 to a utilization device. When the final column has been scanned a column counter 226 produces an output signal which resets flip-flops 188 and 156 and counters 170 and 152.